1. Technical Field
Embodiments of the present invention relate to a signal conversion technique, and more particularly, to a digital-to-analog conversion circuit for controlling a bias current of an input terminal to minimize the area of a buffer amplifier, and to a column driver including the same.
2. Discussion of Related Art
The size of a digital-to-analog (DAC) conversion circuit of a flat panel display typically increases as the number of gray levels displayed by the flat panel display increases. The increase in size of the DAC circuit may cause an increase in the area of a column driver integrated circuit (IC). Further, increases in the resolution of a flat panel display for high definition (HD) images may also cause an increase in the area of the column driver IC.
An increase in the area of the column driver IC typically correlates with an increase in production cost of the flat panel display. Accordingly, it would be beneficial to develop techniques to minimize the area of the column driver IC. A buffer amplifier may be included within a column driver IC to perform the D2A conversion.
However, a conventional buffer amplifier grows in size as the number of grays it is required to process increases. For example, the number of transistors required at an input terminal of the buffer amplifier doubles whenever the number of gray levels is increased.